HI Anne

crossing some of the older lines with disease resistant lines is something I have been doing for about 10 years. If you would like to talk with me or others who are doing so I can give you contacts.

keith

Oh

webpage with some info about some of the lines is
http://kdcomm.net/~tomato/releases/

I can be reached via
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100000601027891

or

http://twitter.com/kctomato

Anne Marie, there isn't one person who hasn't had problems growing tomatoes at one time or another and that applies to both OP varieties as well as hybrids. All heirlooms are OP but not all OP's are heirlooms.

And there is no one generally accepted definition of what an heirloom is and never will be.

I know one professional breeder who is incorporating heirloom varieties into some of his breeding lines for hybrids, primarily for taste at this point,and is also trying to address other problems as well. I'll be growing two of his yet unnamed and yet unreleased varieties this summer. But that doesn't necessarily address your concern with regard to disease tolerance which is yet another complicated issue in terms of the difference between foliage and systemic diseases and what those tolerances even can accomplish . And it seems to me that certain disease tolerances are of much greater importance to the large commercial farmers than they are for the homegrower.

it was Jim Waltrip, the former PR director for Petoseed and now retired who once told me that 95% of the varieties they developed were hybrids for the large commercial farming operations and not necessarily for the homegrower.

And there are several amateur breeders, some not so amateur at all actually, who are doing the same in terms of incroporating heirloom varieties in their breeding projects, but again, not necessarily in terms of disease tolerances.

I happen to be somewhat of a purist when it comes to heirloom varieties so other than once growing Burpee's hybrid Red Brandywine, now called Buck's County Red, I've never been interested in growing the several hybrid derivatives of heirlooms such as Brandy Boy or Glory, etc., and who knows what the vaious colored hybrids introduced this year by Totally TOmatoes are that are named Brandy Masters.

I'm a long time Life time SSE member and happen to believe in preservation of OP varieties, whether they be OP's or OP's that are heirlooms.

And as I said above, there is no one accepted definition of what an heirloom is and never will be.

Yes, I also grow hybrids from time to time, but not hybrid derivatives of what I call heirlooms.

And there's a difference in someone breeding a variety and using heirloom varieties as part of the parentage of a desired variety and then naming it so it incorporates the name of that heirloom in the final variety name and those who don't.

And there are some who use hybrids crossed to OP's
,heirloom or not, as part of the parentage of a final naned variety.

As I see it, it really is a complicatred question and that's maybe why there's a paucity of answers that you've received here.

Mulio would be a good person for you to contact in terms of his own breeding projects and there are others as well who haven't responded to you and/or don't post here at GW.

Carolyn

Anne Marie,

I've grown Brandy Boy and Glory. Brandy Boy seems to truly be a product of crossing heirloom type varieties and is a very nice tomato. I happen to doubt the story about Glory being a cross of two heirlooms as when I grew it out a couple of generations, I got segregations and recombinations of what looks like commercial determinate lines. But Glory as a hybrid, in the F1 generation, is a very nice tomato whatever it is. I've also grown Brandy Boy out to F5 and got some good and some not as good tomatoes, but the norm was disease susceptible in my garden and I dropped the project.

I don't know what the basis of your article is gonna be, Anne Marie, but you probably did not intend it to be an article on backyard hybrid creations like the ones some of us are doing. I got the impression from your first message that maybe it was something along the lines of have any of us tried "hybrid heirloom" types available from commercial sources and what we think about them.

But along a much more interesting track, I will tell you that several of us have been inspired by the man known here as "mulio," including me, and from his inspiration, I have gone on to cross a few heirlooms with other heirlooms and with modern, disease resistant types, and have gotten some interesting, unusual and flavorful results that have been lots of fun working with. I have also been growing out some of mulio's handywork, and it is fabulous as well ... far and away more interesting and flavorful than anything I've grown from Burpee or Peto, that's for damned sure!

Keep us informed on your work and let us know where we can read the final article. Thanks for dropping by.

Bill

to back up what has been said from a lowly country long time gardener i will tell you what i experienced about trying a hybrid type by accented.

i had grown the Goliath heirloom tomato several years. i was getting these large (three pound) tomatoes that were so yummy. several were so large one slice would cover a plate.

well one year i ordered some Goliath and when they were ripe they were like a canning tomato. about the size of Rutgers. and then taste like a ketchup tomato. it was several years later that i noticed that one seed company was offering tow different Goliath tomatoes. then in the small print one of the said it was a hybrid.

it is not a Goliath tomato.

i got sucked in to buying a tomato that was using the good name of an excellent tomato to market some imitation.

i have been more careful since then.

i think that a newly breed of tomato needs it's own name. well i am entitled to my opinion.

Dean

PS would you please put your article on the tomato forum for us to read? tnx

This will be my 20th year growing both hybrids and heirlooms.

I have grown Brandy Boy and it's a winner! Sublime taste and nice production.

I have had a little better luck with hybrids than with heirlooms regarding disease. I think the average heirloom does taste a little better than the average hybrid though but I believe that could be changing as more people like mulio are incorporating TASTE into their creations. (What I think Burpee did with Brandyboy) So yes, I believe in hybrid vigor.

I agree with others that you should take mulio up on his generous offer above. He has forgotten more than I have ever learned re tomatoes...;-)

And as I said above, there is no one accepted definition of what an heirloom is and never will be.

Wrong. Sigh ;-O

The USDA has made a definitive description, it is available in their Thesaurus. If you're doing documentation you need an accepted standard:

heirloom varieties

Definition

Varieties whose germplasm has been conserved through the practice of retaining and passing down 1) seed or 2) vegetative propagules from generation to generation. The germplasm may be of significance to a specific region, community, culture or historic time period.

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA Thesaurus

Trudi, I'm quite aware that the USDA has offered their version of what an heirloom is ( might be), but it is not a definition that is accepted by all interested persons.

As I said above, there are several definitions out there and the orginal one was varieties in existance before about 1940 when hybrids started becoming available.

Some maintain that it's a sliding scale and that a variety in cultivation for 50 years makes it an heirloom, which means today it isn't one and tomorrow it is. ( Smile)

One can also recognize different categories of heirlooms such as commercial, family, deliberately bred and the result of natural Cross pollination.

I think each person has to come to terms with what they feel is a reasonable definition. If there was a Tomato Heirloom Association in existance maybe they could wrestle with a single definition, but knowing many in the tomato field from home growers to seed company owners to breeders, I don't think there ever could be one definition that ALL would accept. ( smile)

The USDA is no different from other organizations in presenting their own definition. And it's one I find too limiting, speaking for just myself.

But again, in my post above I urged folks to do a search for the many threads here where folks discussed this issue in great detail so that this thread didn't go off track on a different issue than the thread title represented.

Carolyn

Yours is a very personal point of view Carolyn, especially since the USDA doesn't completely embrace the definitions you put in your book, so I think most of us will understand your defense of your position ;-)

What in blazes does that have to do with the original questions posed by the person who started this thread?

Refresher for person(s) wishing to lead the discussion astray: "I write about gardening for a major newspaper and am working on a piece about new hybrids based on favorite heirlooms, but bred for better disease resistance."

QUESTION: "Have any of you had trouble growing heirlooms?"

QUESTION: Have you tried any of these neo-heirlooms (a la
burpee's 'brandy boy')?"

QUESTION: "What did you think?" (I assume about Brandy Boy or other "neo-heirlooms."

Uh, now can you contribute something?

Yours is a very personal point of view Carolyn, especially since the USDA doesn't completely embrace the definitions you put in your book, so I think most of us will understand your defense of your position ;-)

Trudi,

For your information the definition I have in my book is NOT a single definition in terms of categories of which three were first defined by Craig LeHoullier in an issue of OTV and the overall definition of a pre-1940 variety is one that I and many other folks adopted as expressed by SSE, so that overall definition is NOT my definition, thank you.

And now as Hoosier said, lets get back to the topic of this thread as I've said three times now, but felt compelled to answer you directly on your wrong comment above.

Carolyn

Carolyn, I said definitionS. Plural.

I have bred some tomatoes. Most all are from heirlooms. I bred them first & foremost for flavor, then production, then disease resistance.

Sometimes your result is different than your initial goal. For example, one of my crosses bred for taste, color & production also was very tolerant to the Late Blight outbreak we had in 2009. It did show signs that it had Late Blight lesions however the plant kept on producing until killed only by frost in October.

I don't really think I can say I had any trouble growing heirlooms though, and wouldn't say heirlooms are really more difficult to grow either, an exception being people not understanding some plants can be really large and may not have expected this or planned for it.

Keep in mind many have withstood the test of time and are still around after many, many years, a tribute to flavor that makes people want to preserve the variety, as well as sometimes very good disease resistance keeping a variety in existence without much of our help. Much of the disease resistance in modern tomato hybrids actually come from some of these heirlooms as well as their old ancestors.

Not exactly sure what you're looking for but hope this helps.

In today's Wall Street Journal. The paper had several photos - looks like by Victor Schrager from Amy Goldman's book. The link might not work forever, so I pasted the article below. Hope I have the images working right.

By ANNE MARIE CHAKER

Black varieties: These heirlooms often hail from Russia and are known for their salty or smoky flavor.

In the kingdom of vegetables, the heirloom tomato is high nobility. Genetically unchanged from one generation to another, it offers an intense flavor prized by gardeners and gourmets.

But it has a reputation for being persnickety in the garden. While modern hybrids are tweaked and improved to resist common diseases, the old stalwarts seem to easily succumb to pathogens that can cause plants to suddenly wilt just as they seem ready to produce.

Tasty Tomatoes

View Slideshow

A selection of cherry heirloom tomatoes.

Now, as gardeners prepare to plant this summer's crop, a number of plant breeders are offering hybrids they claim have the distinct flavors and funky looks of heirlooms but are more disease-resistant and abundantly productive.

To tomato purists, the hybrids amount to heirloom heresy. "I cringe when I hear the term 'heirloom hybrid,' " says Amy Goldman, board chairwoman of the Decorah, Iowa-based nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange. The group champions the tradition of passing along heirloom seed from one generation to the next.

Some of the new varieties are bred to better withstand diseases and microscopic critters that can harm plants. Little worms are why Roger Chetelat can't grow heirlooms. "The soil where I live is infested with nematodes," says the director of the C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center at the University of California, Davis.
Killer Tomatoes

The basics on growing this popular plant

* Start seeds indoors four to six weeks before the last expected frost date.
* Gradually 'harden' seedings by bringing them outdoors for a few hours a day.
* Transplant into the ground in spring once soil has warmed.

* Space them a few feet apart and water down into the roots, avoiding leaves.

This year, W. Atlee Burpee & Co. in Warminster, Pa., is introducing a variety called Tye-Dye, a red-and-yellow marbled tomato that it promotes as "delivering all the heirloom flavor of Big Rainbow, Pineapple and Georgia Streak, with bigger yields, consistent form and better disease resistance." Park Seed Co. in Greenwood, S.C., promotes a ribbed tomato called Country Taste as having "the meaty, flavorful, tangy bite of yesteryear's tomatoes without the poor disease resistance and small yields that plague so many heirlooms." Territorial Seed Co., based in Cottage Grove, Ore., this year offers Golden San Marzano, a yellow version of San Marzano, which is a classic heirloom plum tomato.

Growing Gadgets

The key to growing great tomatoes is to keep plants supported and off the ground to avoid rot and encourage better production. Some products that can help.

Planted now or in the coming weeks, most tomatoes are ready to be picked at high summerJuly and August in most parts of the country. Eating home-grown tomatoes that have delicately ripened on the vine (and not been battered in shipping) is one of the best eating experiences money can't buy. Just add salt, a little olive oilÂor nothing at all.

Breeders say they have been hearing from market growers clamoring for the look and taste of heirlooms but crossed with attributes that make them easier to grow on a larger scale. So in addition to creating more disease-resistant varieties, hybridizers have been working on giving tomatoes a longer shelf life and making shapes more uniform for ease of packing, and creating more compact plants that are easier to maneuver.

"There was such a high demand for heirlooms in the grocery store," says Patty Buskirk, owner of Seeds by Design Inc., a wholesale seed supplier in Maxwell, Calif. "The semi-professional gardeners were asking me to come up with a hybrid that has some kind of uniformity and disease resistance."

Beating the Blight

Researchers at Cornell University have identified some heirloom and hybrid tomato varieties resistant to late blight. See chart

These varieties are now becoming available to home gardeners. Ms. Buskirk's first innovation was a hybrid based on the classic Brandywine tomato, known for its pink color and intense, rich flavor. The result was Brandymaster, which entered the marketplace about three years ago, and which she describes as having a Brandywine flavor, but more uniformly shaped fruits and better resistance to diseases. More recently, she created both yellow and red versions.

Totally Tomatoes, a catalog affiliated with J.W. Jung Seed Co. in Randolph, Wis., this year is selling Ms. Buskirk's innovations in all three colors. A packet of 30 seeds sells for $1.95.

Ms. Buskirk also developed a variety called Patty's Yellow Striped Beefsteak, which is bred to look somewhat like the popular heirloom Big Rainbow, but with more intense flavor, uniform shape, and bigger yields. Cook's Garden, a catalog owned by Burpee, last year began selling itÂa pack of 25 seeds for $3.95 or three plants for $12.50.

Some home tomato growers say such new hybrids threaten an important gardening heritage. One advantage to heirlooms is that, unlike hybrids, seed from a plant can counted on to grow looking like the parent.

"Heirlooms fill a distinct niche and empower the gardener," Ms. Goldman, author of "The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table," says. "Not only is there a sense of satisfaction from growing at home, but also self sufficiency." Still, she says, there is a place in the world for both hybrids and heirlooms.

The old varieties have become increasingly coveted for their weird shapes, funky colors, and rich flavors that span the spectrum from fruity to salty.

Some are deeply ribbed, like Purple Calabash. Others have an "oxheart" shape, tapered at the end, like Hungarian Heart. A number of varieties that are almost black in color hail from Russia, like Black from Tula. Others are yellow (Manyel), orange (Flamme) or green (Aunt Ruby's German Green). Stories of their provenance and discovery are part of the appeal.

Many of the qualities that make heirloom tomatoes appealing to home gardeners make them more of a challenge for larger-scale growers: Great flavor produced by heirloom plants sometimes comes at the expense of higher yields. Unusual shapes and softer fruit require special handling, which drives up cost. And because heirlooms generally grow on big vines, they need more trellises and supports.

Ms. Goldman concedes that while some heirloom varieties can be finicky, that's not necessarily the case for all of the thousands of heirloom varieties that exist today. "There are so many heirlooms that are high to very-high yielding and that perform just as well or better than any hybrid you can imagine," she says. She recommends that home growers try a schedule of different types that tend to produce in succession, to ensure a long harvest. Her suggestions on some particularly hardy varieties: For very early maturity, either Ceylon (a ribbed red variety) or Black Cherry (a maroon cherry tomato). That's followed by either Flamme (a tangerine-colored globe tomato); Yellow Peach (a peach-textured yellow) or Red Rose (a pink globe). Then she recommends Gold Medal (a bicolor beefsteak), followed by Opalka, a blood-red paste tomato, for late season.

She also says that many home gardeners don't space tomatoes far enough apart, which can encourage leaf diseases to spread rapidly. She gives her plants five feet of room. Watering should be infrequent, but deepÂat least an inch a week is the rule of thumbÂand aimed directly at the roots, not on the leaves. And most of all, provide tomatoes plenty of direct sunlightÂat least eight hours a day.

Write to Anne Marie Chaker at anne-marie.chaker@wsj.com

Say it ain't so Mrs B! You are gonna get heirloom tomatoes thrown at you on this forum for reporting anything positive about the the new "Hybrid Heirlooms"! LOL Especially when it came from that yellow journalism rag the WSJ! tsk tsk...

I have only grown Burpee's Brandyboy, three or 4 or 5 years now and it's a winner! After reading this article I'll try and grow the others. That's the only way to judge IMO is to grow them ourselves. Burying your head in the sand doesn't accomplish much. I applaud those who are trying to take the great taste of many of our favorite older OP varieties and improve them through selection. Before I die I want a plant that is a huge producer of giant perfect pink tomatoes with great disease resistance for us non sprayers and tastes like or better than Brandywine! Oh, and they are early too! LOL

I also agree with Amy Goldman to spread plants 5 feet apart, bottom water and not sprawl them for excellent results.

Just in case, I want you to know my first paragraph above was a little facetious and I love reading balanced articles about tomatoes. Thank you very much for posting the article!

Good morning Bigdaddyj. I got a chuckle out of your first paragraph. The image of the Yellow Kid and heirloom tomatoes bombs are gonna keep me company for the rest of the day :)

Complete FLUFF PIECE.

That reporter needs to ask some real questions, especially regarding the breeding of Brandymaster, the disease resistance claims associated with it, and where the F1 seeds are produced and by whom. Something ain't right or doesn't pass the smell test, imo.

I think the article did the exact job it was meant to. Get people who maybe don't normally grow heirloom tomatoes some information on their options. Many people will not grow heirlooms an article like this might not only encourage them to try these new hybrids, but maybe an according to hoyle heirloom as well.

A garden piece in any major newspaper is not going to aimed at those who can discuss F1 vs OP heirlooms vs OP non heirlooms. Its supposed to be written so that if someone starts reading, they are likely to finish. To call it a fluff piece is not fair. It is just enough information for its target audience. If this was in a gardening magazine, then it would be fluff and not nearly informative enough.